Canada needs launch a program to pay people for relevant photos from the past.Tragically, people toss out invaluable photos and negatives every day because they have no incentive to keep them.
The result leaves an enormous gap in our understanding of the past.
Significant funds from the government or private foundations need to be organized to pay people for historically-relevant photos before the images get lost forever.
Alternatively, government could enact fines for people who fail to recycle their photos.
During the 18 months I've been working on my upcoming 400-page masterpiece Montreal: 375 Tales (set for release within a few weeks) and I have seen a tragic and shocking gap in our visual knowledge of the past.
There are simply no photos in existence of such relatively-recent places as The Alberta Lounge on Peel, the nightclubs, hotels and restaurants on Metcalfe and Mansfield and most amazingly, the entire once-buzzing strip of Sherbrooke just West of Park, including The Swiss Hut, New Penelope, Spanish Association, Country Palace and Fawzia's Belly-Dancing place.
The same crisis surely exists in other places across Canada as well.
Why do we need photos of restaurants, cafes, bars, nigthclubs?
Because those places show how we chose to live in the past.
They inform us of our history and how we lived in the city.
To start the ball rolling, I offer, as a symbolic gesture, $5 for any good quality photo of such places from the past.The same dearth of photos surely applies to other towns across Canada.
His shot of the Main and St. Catherine (above) might be my all-time favourite photo of Montreal.
Give him a medal.
To think that there are more such photos lying around neglected and unseen somewhere is almost mind-blowing.
Others post their photos onto Facebook on their own pages (see the excellent Armand Monroe's photo at left of the PJ's sign from the 1970s) or excellent pages like Montreal Historical Photos.But surely most have simply allowed their photos to sit in boxes or worse yet, tossed them out without taking the time to scan the shots.
Newspapers and other such outlets have collections that they do not share with the public without getting paid.
Solution? Government or someone with money needs to buy those collections outright and put them online for all to look at or republish.
This would be a way to bolster the bottom lines of beleaguered media outlets that have been beset by massive financial problems and it would enrich our understanding of where we came from.
A photo buyback purchase program could also put money into pockets of long-struggling freelance photographers.
People like the excellent Jason Felker who barely made ends meet doing his excellent work in Montreal might finally see a payday in exchange for their photos, if they have any still.
Government already spends billions on much-less-worthy programs which I won't name here.
Please contact me if you have a collection that might have value and I'll help you proceed.